Sales promotion aims to increase the sales of the products or services to customers or clients. Routinely it targets at the low moving products or high consumption products/services. The process initiation utilizes distinct media and non-media methods.
Social media is very effective in reaching larger audience and there are 5 key methods by which social media can drive sales promotions for your business.
1. Understand the audience
As a rule of the thumb, understanding the buyer persona is imperative to gain insights into what the customers are searching for. Social media offers interactive platform where millions of users share their opinions. An informal approach sought after increasing the scope of trust building within the customers. The click through rate increases and hence greater conversions as users now wish to seek brands who have gained there trust and they now want to visit the business website again and again. Besides, being well informed about the customers’ buying behaviour prevents the businesses from getting tempted to bombard wrong advertisements at the wrong occasions.
Once you know the buyer behaviour, the next step is to approach the audience through targeted advertisements on product promotions.
2. Target the audience
Advertisements on social media suggest discounts and offers on the products or services. It conveys the offers to a substantial number of customers in a jiffy. However, not every customer bears similar interests. The social media is inundated with various advertisements every single day and directing the business advertisements to the right audience is essential. Targeting the right audience based on various parameters like demographic, region, ethnicity etc. keeps the sales promotion strategy on the right track.
3. Choose the right platform
Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and other social media platforms have varied features and each can be used to drive promotions. Linkedin is a professional development platform and mainly limited to professional communication. It is less likely to be effective for product discounts for customers, albeit it is constructive for B2B promotions .The Dynamic ad option particularly is a direct way of actively seeking engagements from individuals as well as businesses. Pinterest is well accepted among women groups. The sales promotion strategy should be aligned with the basic offerings of the platform and the sort of audience virtually active on it.
4. Perform Competitor analysis
As almost all businesses reach out to their customers through social media, it is easier to understand the competitors to ensure that the business does not lag behind the competition. This creates awareness of the opponent’s approach. While keeping this in mind, businesses can devise better creative methods. Additionally, one can track the seasonal and off-season trends for introducing the promotions on social media to prevent the clash of offers.
5. Schedule the promotions
Social media monitoring tools help to monitor and control the response to the promotion ads. This was never achievable with offline marketing methods. Advertisement posts have to be timed according to the peak usage hours to ensure maximum returns on the social media promotional efforts. The seasonal promotions have to be in congruence with the real trends which can be tapped online through social media.
